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Friday, October 7, 2011

Homeschool or Not?.... An example of what worries me

This week was an example of just the kind of thing I worry about in terms of the practical obstacles between homeschooling in theory and homeschooling in practice.

The week was supposed to be filled with wonderful homeschool-ish opportunities: Monday was to be a trip to the zoo with a Massachusetts Muslim Homeschoolers group; Wednesday was supposed to be the first meeting of our homeschool preschool Chinese class, and then a weekly get-together at a park with another homeschool group that includes - yay!!! - another Egyptian three-year-old girl; and Friday was to be a hike with a young homeschoolers group. Sounds great, right?

In reality, though, the only two days which went as planned were Tuesday and Thursday: the days when Basbusa has preschool. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. (I signed her up for this preschool back when I was panicking that she had no friends to play with at all, before I had learned much about homeschooling. The money is already paid, and she enjoys it. And it's all play, no academics.)

On Monday, it turned out that through miscommunication, some of the Muslim homeschoolers were headed for our nearest zoo, while the others were headed for one that is further away. I couldn't get confirmation that anyone else was definitely going to the nearby one, and it turned out that all but one family canceled on the farther one, due to forecast rain. Actually, the cancelled trip gave us an opportunity to go to the weekly park-day of another young homeschoolers group, which was great, but involved a lot more time in the car.

On Wednesday, the Chinese class turned out to be just what I had been hoping and we met two new great homeschooling families, but there were a few complications. It started an hour late because of transportation difficulties - which was no problem for us now, but suppose Basbusa was old enough for "real" homeschooling, and had other classes or activities lined up? One of her best friends was supposed to have been coming too, but had to cancel because her little brother was sick. And we couldn't go to the meet-up at the park because my dearest Other Half thinks I've been spending too much money on gas lately :( So we went to a local park by ourselves instead.

On Friday, it turned out that this week's young-homeschooler-hike is too far away (considering that Basbusa isn't likely to make it through more than about 20 minutes of the hike in any case :) But we had a playdate with a friend instead, and the girls had a great time playing together.

Hmmmm... Looking back on it, though, we still did get a lot out of our homeschooling activities on Monday and Wednesday, despite the changes in plan. So I guess I should get used to the idea that even a good homeschooling week would involve more flexibility and less predictability than a traditional school week. And that I'll need to find a way of reaching a family consensus that homeschooling is going to have certain costs in terms of gas mileage!